JUNE 14, 1961

NEW YORK—There have been a number of stories in the newspapers in recent weeks about the conditions
under which migrant workers live and work, and some of these stories have not been
complimentary.

However, I know an employer here in New York State who makes every effort to comply
with the law. And the workers he has been able to hire year after year are far better,
he says, than any he can find in his own area. We should pay tribute to such employers
who treat their help decently for this seasonal work. It is the good employers who
attract the same groups of workers year after year, and both the employer and employees
benefit. The good workmen move from one job to another with some regularity, and when
the season is worked out they return to their homes with enough money to live on for
the remainder of the year.

Unfortunately, there are other part-time employers who exploit these seasonal workers.
They seem to care little or nothing for human beings and let them live under outrageous
conditions and pay them just as little as they possibly can. Such evil men will always
try to circumvent the law, and we must rely on those who are good citizens to report
to the state and Federal authorities any violations that tend to bring the standards
down if the bad employers can get away with it.

This, again, is a question of good citizenship and moral courage. Teamed together,
they can do a good deal to change the migrant labor situation, which certainly is
a blot on our civilization.

I have just received a long letter from someone who is deeply interested in our project,
as outlined and backed by President Kennedy, to put a man on the moon. I have to confess
that so far I have not been able to get very excited about this project. I realize
it may have very interesting scientific results, but I am so very occupied with the
problems on this planet that I find it difficult to think of what we may have to meet
on the moon.

My correspondent, however, is more scientifically minded, so he acclaims the project
highly and suggests that we would accelerate our task if we would put together a group
of Russian and American scientists working as a team, pooled the knowledge, and made
the flight as a joint proposition.

Are we ready, I wonder, to cooperate on a scientific research project? Are we ready
to put all this research into the hands of the United Nations and to give the U.N.
the right to call on all of us for our best knowledge and resources?

We might do better and move much more quickly than now, with each working in his own
separate compartment. It is a question to think about.

I found entertaining Prof. Leo Szilard's story of the day in the distant future when
some human beings from a distant planet landed on our destroyed earth. These visitors
looked upon Grand Central Terminal, the only building left standing in New York, and
thought it a strange and curious structure. And the trains they found standing about
the yards were to them a primitive method that these strange inhabitants of a destroyed
world must have used for transportation.

Finally, on investigation, they found that although the skeletons lying around seemed
to have belonged to the same species they must have destroyed each other. And this
was such an inexplicable thing that they doubted if it was worth making any further
research about such morons!

This suggested to me how much we have to do to remain alive. Let's not try to be discovered
as a destroyed planet. I feel those of us who are not scientists had perhaps better
put our minds on the things we can still do to learn to live together with the people
of this earth and not give too much of our thought to what we may find on the moon.